75 years ago evening for evening, Elizabeth celebrated like any Englishwoman, anonymous and happy in the cheering crowd celebrating the victory over Nazism. Exceptional moment of freedom in a life governed from start to finish by protocol. One of the "most memorable nights of my life," she says decades later.
This Friday, May 8, in a brief speech - recorded at the Windsor Palace where she is confined - the queen paid a tribute to her father, George VI, who had known how to embody (with his Prime Minister Winston Churchill) the resistance to Hitler . In the first images of her speech, the current sovereign has been erased in favor of archival images, showing the king announcing to his people the end of the war. It was then 9 p.m. in London ... the exact time that her daughter chose to speak to millions of British viewers ... and around the world.
6th speech in 68 years of reign
After black and white, make way for color! Elizabeth II, whose famous peach complexion has not aged despite his 94 years, appeared on screens in a pastel blue dress, a portrait of her father next to her armchair. For this speech, its 6th only in 68 years of reign (but its 2nd, with that of April 5, since the start of the pandemic), the Palace services had promised a rather personal tone. Despite some intimate allusions, she remained the queen that we got used to know, modest and reserved, preferring to confine herself to a more universal message. “At first, the prospects seemed bleak, the outcome far away, the outcome uncertain. But we continued to believe that the cause was just and this conviction carried us, "began the queen, before enjoining the British not to" give up ":" Never lose hope, that was the message of the Victory Day in Europe ”. And that is, 75 years later, his message to the Kingdom hit by a deadly pandemic.
Spoken by this sovereign who knew the war (she even briefly wore the uniform), this call to hope obviously has a particular resonance. In her shadow, we always guess a little that of Churchill, who was her first Prime Minister when she inherited the crown on the death of her father in February 1952. Boris Johnson, current tenant of 10 Downing street, is her… 14th. In early April, he had to be hospitalized in intensive care after contracting Covid-19. The coronavirus killed 31,000 across the Channel, and it was to a disoriented nation that the Queen worked to cheer up.
May 8 festivities canceled
As in France and elsewhere, the May 8 festivities, particularly important in the United Kingdom, had to be canceled or reduced to a minimum. Despite the absence of a parade, "our streets are not empty," said Elizabeth II positively. They are filled with the love and care we have for each other. And when I look at our country today and see what we are ready to do to protect and support each other, I proudly observe that we are still a nation that these brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognize and admire . Is it not, moreover, physically the link between this glorious past and the uncertain present?
Queen with no other than symbolic powers, Elizabeth, more popular than she has ever been, has at least the power to reassure her subjects with her own words. What she did this Friday evening with a queen's hand in less than four minutes.